72 Programs For A Freeware Only PC

Check out the new updated list, 94 Great Freeware Programs! And there is a new Freeware Mission MegaPack available to download, check it out!

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This post is my gift for you, with the best wishes for a Happy New Year. Many of you read and commented on my 51 Essential Programs For A Freeware Only PC post, many of you downloaded the Freeware Mission Megapack. Well, I’m trying to get the whole thing further. I’ve been using only freeware and open source programs in my Windows Xp powered PC since july, and I can tell you that it really works. I had 51 freeware programs, now I have 72. And you can have them too, I compiled a MegaPack again with the programs listed below – the Freeware Mission MegaPack 2008! The download link is just below, tested and working (but prepare for a long download, the whole package is about 640 MB). Happy New Year, see you in 2009, with a new MegaPack! I’m looking forward to hearing your comments!

Personal Video Database – Simply the best movie collection manager. It can retrieve information about your movies from several internet databases, includes loan manager and full unicode support. And it has a nice layout too.

Audacity – Open source audio editing and recording program, the best free on you can get. It is very easy to use and works on Mac OSX and Linux too.

Alternatives: – Wavosaur

BEST FREE ANTIVIRUS

Avast! – The home edition is a free antivirus solution, provides resident real time protection, basic antispyware protection and doesn’t take to much memory while running in the background (a lot less than BitDefender, that’s for sure).

Digsby – Although it is still in beta it’s a very interesting instant messenger client. Supports AIM, MSN, Yahoo, ICQ, Google Talk, Jabber, and Facebook Chat Accounts. But the great feature is that it supports multiple e-mail accounts, Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo Mail, AOL/AIM Mail, IMAP, and POP. It is also a great tool for social networking, it supports Facebook, Twitter, or MySpace accounts so far, with more of them coming up.

12. DriveImage XML – Great freeware program, you can backup your hard disk data and then restore the image if needed.

Alternatives: – Acronis True Image

BEST FREE DVD RIPPING PROGRAM

DVD Shrink – This one is a classic, everybody knows it, some people even sell copies of it. A great tool for backing up your video DVDs.

Alternatives: DVD Decrypter

BEST FREE DVD AUTHORING PROGRAM

DVD Styler – Free DVD authoring tool, supports PAL and NTSC. Very easy to use, just drag and drop an mpeg file and make your video DVD. You can also make decent menus with it, even with audio. It also has a Linux version.

FeedDemon – It wasn’t free, now it is! Looks nice, works well and has a bunch of nice features that will make your RSS feeds reading better.

Alternatives: RSS Bandit, RSS Owl

BEST FREE FONT FINDER

FontNetInstaller – This one can help you search for fonts over the internet as it has the best websites indexed and lets you search through them within the program. Doesn’t require installation, just unpack and run.

Notepad++ – Powerful open source text editor written in C++, supports a wide range of programming languages, great multi-document and multi-view features.

Alternatives: – Emerald Editor

BEST FREE OFFICE SUITE

OpenOffice.org – This open source package replaces my Microsoft Office installation. Is it as good? I think it’s better! You won’t have any problems with adjusting to it, the basic features are similar to those in Microsoft Office.

PDF XChange Viewer – Very good PDF reader, a lot faster than Adobe Reader. And there’s even more: you can convert your PDF files to various file formats, including BMP, JPG, PNG or TIFF. It can be integrated with Firefox or Internet Explorer.

Alternatives: – Foxit Reader, Sumatra Reader

BEST FREE PDF WRITER

PDFCreator – Very good freeware PDF writer, can create PDF files out of any printable document. It can be installed as standalone or as a server application – install on a single computer and have it available on all the machines in your network.

ReNamer – Very easy to use drag and drop file renamer, it offers all the standard renaming procedures: prefixes, suffixes, replacements, case changes, as well as removing contents of brackets, adding number sequences, changing file extensions.

SIW (System Information for Windows) – Great free system information tool, provides info about the components and software environment in your computer. Also has some interesting extra features like network bandwidth monitoring and password manager.

StarBurn – I’ve been using Nero before. I don’t need it anymore, StarBurn is free and pretty good. I’ve burned several DVDs with it (including DVD video) and it never failed. Supports CD, DVD, HD-DVD and Blu Ray discs.

SUMo (Software Update Monitoring) – Identifies the software that you have installed in your system and checks the internet for updates. The latest version seems to have corrected most errors, works pretty fine.

Alternatives: FileHippo.com Update Checker, UpdateStar

BEST FREE ANTISPYWARE

SUPERAntiSpyware – The best antispyware solution that you can get for free. It doesn’t provide resident protection, but if you just scan your computer with it once a week or so you should be fine.

Alternatives: Spybot Search and Destroy

BEST FREE MEMORY OPTIMIZER

SweepRAM – Outstanding tiny freeware memory optimizer with an unique approach. What you should do is, after you’ve turned your computer on, and started all applications that will be running all day long (antivirus, etc) run SweepRAM. That way, all running applications will reduce their memory use to the required amount, giving you as much RAM available for your work as possible.

Alternatives: Free RAM XP

BEST FREE SYSTEM RESOURCE METER

SysTrayMeter – Tiny resource meter that sows you the CPU and memory usage. You can easily close it by double clicking on the icon in the system tray.

Alternatives: – TinyResMeter

BEST FREE FILE COMPRESSION PROGRAM / ZIP UTILITY

TUGZip – Very good free compression utility, works fine with almost any archive file format, fast and reliable.

Alternatives: jZip, 7zip

BEST FREE WINDOWS TWEAKING PROGRAM

TweakUI – Free from Microsoft? Well, it’s for real A must have for any Windows XP user, allows you to tweak the setting you wouldn’t have access to normally.

nLite – freeware tool that allows you to customize your Windows installationbootable CD. That means you can remove Windows components that you don’t want to be installed right from the start.

Alternatives: –

BEST FREE BITTORRENT CLIENT

uTorrent – Best BitTorrent client, lightweight and reliable. The new version brings better functionality and some new features.

Alternatives: Azureus, BitLord

BEST FREE VIDEO EDITING PROGRAM

VirtualDub – Legendary open source editing tool, great for cutting and transcoding your video files for best quality avi output.

RichFLV – A very good freeware tool for basic flash video files editing.

Alternatives: – ZS4, Jahshaka

BEST FREE DICTIONARY

WordWeb – Great free dictionary and thesaurus, I’m already in love with it. It can be used to look up words from almost any program, showing definitions, synonyms and related words. It includes pronunciations and usage examples, has spelling and sounds-like links.

Alternatives: – Lingoes

BEST FREE FILE SHARING PROGRAM

DropBox – allows you to share files with the world quickly and easily. The bad thing is that the free account has a 2 GB limitation.

Kompozer- easy to use “what you see is what you get” html editor, simple but powerful.

Alternatives: – PsPad

BEST FREE INTERNET CONNECTION OPTIMIZER

TCP Optimizer – great freeware tool that allows you to tweak your internet connection in order to get the most speed out of it.

Alternatives: – DrTCP, SpeedNeed

BEST FREE BROKEN LINKS CHECKER

Xenu’s Link Sleuth – very good freeware program for webmasters. Just type in your website adress and scan it for broken links.

Alternatives: – Link Evaluator

BEST FREE PROCESS MANAGER

Process Tamer – great tiny freeware tool that allows you to control the processes that are running in your system.

Alternatives: – Process Explorer

BEST FREE PROGRAM UNINSTALLER

Revo Uninstaller – uninstalls your programs and helps you to clean the leftovers that remain after the uninstalling is completed.

Alternatives: – MyUninstaller, ZSoft Uninstaller

BEST FREE CONTEXT MENU MANAGER

Mmm Free – freeware program that allows you to tweak the windows context menu.

Alternatives: -

BEST FREE HARD DISK BENCHMARKING TOOL

CrystalDiskMark – You can use it to test your hard disks and even USB sticks and external hard disk drives.

Alternatives: – Active@ Hard Disk Monitor

BEST FREE DISK SPACE ANALYZER

Sequoia View – Innovative freeware program that gives you the tools you need to analyze the files and folders on your hard disks and find those huge files that you forgot to delete.

Alternatives: – jDiskReport, WinDirStat

BEST FREE FILE MANAGER

FreeCommander – A very good alternative to the standard Windows file manager.

Alternatives: – xplorer² free

BEST FREE PROGRAM LAUNCHER

Launchy- Open source Windows and Linux program that helps you to launch the program you need without browsing through your Start Menu or looking for a shortcut on your desktop.

Alternatives: – FARR (Find and Run Robot)

BEST FREE ACCOUNTING PROGRAM

GnuCash – Powerful open source accounting program, suitable for both common and advanced users.

Alternatives: – AceMoney Lite

BEST FREE COLOR IDENTIFIER

ColorCop – Helps you identify the colors on your screen and gives you the respective code for each color. Very useful for webmasters and designers.

Alternatives: – Just Color Picker, Pixeur

BEST FREE WEATHER INFORMATION PROGRAM

Weather Watcher – Fast, lightweight, reliable. I don’t know if you could ask for more.

Alternatives: Weather Pulse

BEST FREE LYRICS FINDER

Evil Lyrics – Automatically searches for lyrics as your song is played in your player, it works great with Winamp, Windows Media Player, iTunes, MusicMatch, Foobar, MediaMonkey, Real Player, QCD, AlbumPlayer, Y!Music, XMPlay. It even has a karaoke mode.

Alternatives: -

BEST FREE GAMES

Frets On Fire – Outstanding open source game, similar to the very popular Guitar Hero.

BEST FREE STICKY NOTES PROGRAM

Stickies – Once you get used to it you won’t be able to live without it. Easily creates sticky notes on your desktop.

Great list and thanks very much for the Mission Megapack!! I’ll like it!
Are you thinking of testing bookmark managers/favorite managers?
I’ve a lot of bookmarks and looking for good freeware to search my bookmarks fast.
Or do you have any other solution? (mostly use Firefox). – Jacob.

@JacobK
Thanks for the comment. I’ll try to test some bookmark managers next year

# 30 December 2008 at 17:30

Bob OBrien said:

Great job!
I’m especially impressed with 2 of your picks: Format Factory & Orbit Downloader. I download many You-tube vids for conversion & burning to DVD. These 2 programs are the best for doing this.
Keep up the good work and thanks.

Hi JK
Just an addendum to my recent comment re Orbit & Format Factory. While I completely agree with your picks I beg to differ on the burning software choice of Starburn. Check out “DVD Flick”.
To me it is second only to Nero in transcoding and burning to DVD. In my opinion Nero is light years ahead of all the competition and really worth the purchase price. But please take a look at “DVD Flick”.
Thanks again for all your help

@Bob
I’d rather put DVD Flick in the DVD Authoring Programs category, not in the DVD Burners category. I think that these two programs serve different purposes. DVD Flick is listed under the DVD Authoring Programs as an alternative to DVD Styler, but I’d say that both programs are very good. Starburn is for burning data, audio files, dvd images and so on.

@Mike
Hey Mike! I’ll think about your suggestions for the next MegaPack.

# 9 January 2009 at 18:29

Bob OBrien said:

JK:

Just installed “Any A/V Converter”. What a revelation! Extracted audio tracks from 12 classic rock videos in .avi format. Beautiful! Burned a CD from the converted tracks. Program is fast and user friendly Many thanks. One item: I’m going to try “DVD Styler” Your download link is now invalid. It goes to”dvdstyler.de. Should be”dvdstyler.org. I found it somehow with my fumbling around. Again,thanks

@Bob O’Brien
I’m so happy you liked the program and that you found it useful. As for DVD Styler, I’ll repair the link, thanks for the heads up.

# 12 January 2009 at 19:27

Bob OBrien said:

Hi JK: About Browsers:
I have 2 computers, 1. Compaq desktop, 2ghz processor, 2 gig ram win xp home sp2, runs like a corvette on everything. 2. 8 yr old toshiba notebook (Satellite),700mhz processor,192 ram(not expandable), running win 2000 pro sp4.
Running the following browsers on the notebook consumes memory as follows:
Opera 30mb
IE 38mb
FF 58 to 70 mb!
This is at rest in home page.
I increased virtual mem in pagefile. Do you have data that agrees with these results?

Hey Bob. The results I had are slightly different:
– IE takes 51 MB
– Firefox takes 51 MB
I think it might depend on the type of page that you load, don’t know. If I trust my senses and my eyes I would say that Chrome and Opera are the fastest though. Maybe you can give me the url of your home page and I’ll test with that page too.

# 21 January 2009 at 15:10

Bob OBrien said:

Hey JK:
Here’s the url you requested netmail.verizon.net/webmail/driver?nimlet=deggetfolder
I want to reiterate my opinion that you are performing a great service for the computing public. I hope you continue your quest for the foreseeable future. I’ve gained a lot of knowledge and expertise thru your website and recommend it to all who will listen. I’m not a “techie” but I can find my way around . Looking forward to the “sequel”. Thanks

[…] Karp of Freeware Mission posts about the 70-plus free programs he has installed on his PC. He divides the applications, ranging from audio-editing apps to […]

# 22 January 2009 at 22:12

Bob OBrien said:

Hello again JK:
Need a little of your expertise on this one: Just downloaded “gp partition”. Unzipped in a folder.
Can not find an .exe file to launch Program. Clicked on every file in folder. No go. Help!
Did a second memory sweep on browsers under same previously stated conditions.
Results:FYI
FF 100mb
IE 81
Opera 52
Chrome 48
Safari 89

Screen Capture: FastStone Capture (http://www.portablefreeware.com/?id=775) it has since gone payware, but is redistributed under an old license in several places. captures regions, entire screens, individual windows, scrolling windows and it has a built in editor for quick highlighting or light edits

# 28 January 2009 at 01:26

baracuda68 said:

All freeware on XP? Can you EASILY remove IE? C’mon… The only REAL way to have a full freeware/open source system is to NOT HAVE IT ON A WINDOWS SYSTEM! Jeesh…Linux,people!!! Get it right!

I would nominate Irfanview for best image editor and picture viewer. I’ve tried a lot of programs and I have Photoshop, but I use Irfanview for 99% of my photo editing. The program is free, small, unobtrusive and the guy is constantly updating its capabilities. Picasa may have changed, but when I tried Picasa a few years ago, it inserted itself into every graphics folder I had on my computer. It took me many hours to completely uninstall it.

One more nomination. A free, open source photo gallery creator called Jalbum.

@Anon
I chose not to use FastStone Capture because it has gone payware. VLC is a good alternative indeed.
@baracuda68
Chill out, mate. Nobody will make you install Windows on your PC if you have Linux, don’t worry. I think that Ubuntu for instance might get too complicated for not very advanced users because of the drivers problems and so on.
@Ern
Thanks for the heads up.
@Shawn
Thanks for sharing your view.
@nyditch
Thanks for the suggestions.

@Kevin & Nabil
I chose Chrome after being a Firefox fan for years. And I agree, it’s the addons that I miss, but overall I feel that Chrome does a better job. I recently quit smoking, so letting those addons go wasn’t as difficult…

Great info! I,m a 55 yr old novice at this (still smoke, by the way) and wondered if you could make a list of good, common English tutorials. I’m working w/Autodesk and Adobe MS (CS3).Current hardware is Dell laptop w/Centrino Dual Core, 2g RAM, 320g running Vista. Currently using Semantic 360 but I’m not married to it. I also have Ccleaner and have had good luck with it. But, I’m afraid to experiment too much for fear I’ll do something I can’t undo. Thanks again for your info here and in the future.

Hey Terry! My dad’s 55 I was thinking about making some tutorials, but if I’ll finally decide to make some they will also be with and about free software. And don’t worry, it’s never too late to learn. And it’s likely that you’ll do some harm to your computer in the process, but that’s how things go. Anytime you’ll need some computer advice just drop a message here, I’ll be glad to help as much as possible.

Thanks for the info Chris, it’s the first time I hear about it. I’ll give it a try. Btw, cool avatar

# 12 February 2009 at 23:48

banhmr9001 said:

I love how this article lists SEVENTY-TWO programs so that you can use them without having to buy software to do the same thing, or better yet, to replace functions that may already be controlled by non-freeware applications! I also love how the list is composed entirely of programs for the Microsoft Windows operating system, and no other…even though Windows isn’t freeware.

@Sherri
Thanks for your comment and for donating to those wonderful people.

# 14 March 2009 at 19:58

snodi said:

please check the best freeware of dekstop publishing and open source OS

# 16 March 2009 at 07:22

Jim Ord said:

Johnny,
It appears that we have an eternal loop between Advanced System Care, Zone Alert and Windows Internet Explorer! I use Mozilla Firefox but after having scanned for spyware using Advanced System care, it recommends an online facility called NOD32, which in turn insists that I use Windows IE, which will not run alongside Zone Alert (this from Microsoft help)! I’d love to use the online remover, but not at the expense of losing Zone Alert – Any ideas?
Jim

Pretty comprehensive list, I’m sure plenty will find this immensely useful. In terms of Launchy-esque programs, a definite contender would also be Executor. I have used both, and Executor simply places a bigger emphasis on keywords, rather than indexing. Just a thought!

# 11 April 2009 at 06:32

Troy said:

left out MalwareBytes for antispyware , other than that a very nice list as i use most of the software featured.

@John
1. Any Audio Converter – I never had any problems with it, just set up your firewall correctly and it will work just fine.
2. StarBurn DOES NOT change your browser start page if you pay attention when installing the program. Otherwise, a great program for burning CDs and DVDs, but apparently you didn’t try that.
3. I never experienced abnormal behavior when using TugZip (I’m using another program now called IZArc). Anyway, is the “about” tab so important when using a program? In my view you’re just trying too hard to find flaws in these programs instead of just using them for the purpose they were made for. Cheers.

Hey Jim. I reviewed Kompozer a few months ago, it’s a freeware html editor. I guess you can call it a website builder, although I don’t really understand if you want more than a WYSIWYG web editor. Here’s a good tutorial for using Kompozer, I hope it helps – How to Design and Publish Your Website with KompoZer

Thanks for the clarification. I admit, I don’t use any firewalls except the Windows firewall (XP version). No hack attacks yet but I’ll probably install one soon.

# 1 May 2009 at 04:23

Jim Ord said:

Thanks for the FILEZILLA lead for website building Johnny – I will pursue it and also thank you for the fax software lead, that I’m pursuing already via my I.P. here in S.A. – I’ve submitted my order for free FaxForAsterix (Digium) and will report on progress via this Blog – I contacted Johnny direct asking him about Fax over Internet without using a 4th party and he pointed me in the right direction! (Thanks Mate!)

Dear Johnny,
I received the following from my I.P. “Kindly be advised that we do not support Fax over IP. The only faxing service we offer is Fax to voicemail and fax to email”
Stymied!
But once again thanks for your help and I shall still be pursuing O/G fax via internet, here in the 3rd world!
Jim

Hi johnny!
Jim again, I need your help!
I’m looking for a way to include a photo gallery for my brother in the U.K.’s website which I’m developing using Kompozer (very nicely if I may say so!)
I’ve Googled and found an Open Source site – http://gallery.menalto.com/ – which seems pretty good.
I’d seriously be happier if you could endorse it or another if you’ve checked it out/
many Thanks in anticipation – Jim

Hi Johnny,
Just a quick Thank You for FileZilla and Kompozer leads – my brother Martin is quite impressed also. The website http://www.summerfieldbandb.co.uk, is still WIP but is taking shape!!
We want to incorporate a ‘Visitor’s Book’ page, and I envisioned something on the lines of your page here? How does one include such a facility? Using Kompozer?
Thanking you in anticipation – Jim

Hey Jim! I must say that Summerfield looks absolutely awesome! And I’m not just saying that to be polite. As for the website, maybe you could go for a free template instead of building it from scratch. I think that even with WordPress you could build a nice website for your purpose. About the visitor’s book, I’m not a coder so I really don’t know how to build such a thing but I think that it can be done with Kompozer provided you have the coding knowledge. Anyway, best of luck with Summerfield!

I would have make the same choices for the software I know. I suppose I’m going to like those I don’t know yet ! Thank you.

# 25 June 2009 at 19:44

Michael said:

Hi Johnny

Put PhotoFiltre in your list (If it is there I missed it)

This program can put text under photo’s and also put a background colour edge to pic’s. Also it can produce great text when it’s put in the page by clicking on the edge of the text and dragging the edge to create a great effect.

[…] (By the way, you might be interested in 72 freeware application for your PC) […]

# 31 August 2009 at 09:57

JIM ORD said:

HI JOHNNY, LONG TIME ME NO SPEAK! I’M IMPRESSED WITH THE GROWTH OF FREEWARE MISSION!! AND A LITTLE DISAPPOINTED THAT ZONEALARM ANTI-VIRUS AND GLARE UTILITIES DIDN’T GET A LOOK IN, ON YOUR RECENT POLL! HOWEVER I’M MORE THAN CONTENT WITH THEM! SINCE TAKING YOUR ADVICE CONCERNING WEBSITE DESIGN FREEWARE (FILEZILLA & KOMPOZER)I’VE GONE INTO THE WYSIWYG WEBSITE BUSINESS! I’VE ONLY DONE 3 SITES TO-DATE, BUT HEY! IT’S BEEN FUN! MY BROTHER BOUGHT ME A WEBSITE, BY WAY OF A THANK YOU, AFTER I’D DONE HIS FOR HIS BED AND BREAKFAST BUSINESS IN THE UK (www.summerfieldbandb.co.uk) (I’M STILL PRACTISING TO IMPROVE IT, AS I PICK UP EXPERIENCE ALONG THE WAY). WITH THE EXTRA CASH SO GENERATED, I SHALL BE RETURNING TO MY FAMILY IN THE UK AFTER AN ABSENCE OF 28 YEARS! SO, THANK YOU FOR YOUR HELP, WHICH I SEE AS THE CATALYST FOR ME UPCOMING PRODIGAL RETURN!
P.S.
I JUST WANT TO WARN TWEAKUI USERS THAT IT INVOKES A SUPERVISOR LOGIN TO WINDOWS IF NOT UNCHECKED, DURING TWEAKING! IF YOU DON’T HAVE YOUR SUPERVISOR LOGIN PASSWORD A RELOAD OF YOUR OPERATING SYSTEM BECOMES INEVITABLE! CHEERS, JIM!

Hey Jim! I’m so happy that I could help you and I’m thrilled that I had a small contribution to your prodigal return

# 3 September 2009 at 12:57

Johan said:

Disappointing list of freeware. There are better alternatives for almost each of these items.

You didn’t mention the annoying once-a-day popup of Avast!

And you didn’t mention that the full install of SUMO has spyware. BAD MOVE!

You didn’t mention XnView which is superior to Picasa and IrfanView

You didn’t mention Malwarebytes Anti-Malware that is superior to Super Anti-Spyware

You didn’t mention Secunia’s PSI

codec packs? why would anyone need codec packs? VLC plays everything.

I tried EvilLyrics that you recommended. It didn’t find ANY lyrics for any of the 15 songs I tried, and it was classics like Judas Priest, Jimi Hendrix, Queen etc. What a rip-off, even for free software…

I could go on but I think you get the point. You need to do more research….

Greetings Johnny,
I could not display the latest ’94 Freeware’ page – Not Found – temporary glitch I’m sure.
But, nonetheless I’m sure this thread will get through to you!
What it is, I really like your Gravatar pic and would like to know which photo-to-cartoon type of facility you may have used to create it as I want one for myself! It seems a more humble choice, to enhance one’s communications on the Net.

CrystalDisk Info opened and worked OK for a while then my computer frooze when I looked at the 3 hard drives I have on a failry fast P5B ASUS computer

As I do not use this compuer on the intyernet(I use another)there is not a fault with the computer as it had been working fine for the last 6 months.

Pressing Ctrl + Alt + Del did not even bring up the menu to stop the program

Restarting the computer got it working again and no more problems until I tried to start the next day when it wouldn’t start at all even in Safe mode.
I had to Boot from the WinXP CD and click Repair before I could get it going again

You you should make changes to the webpage subject title 72 Programs For A Freeware Only PC | Freeware Mission to something more suited for your subject you make. I liked the post yet.

# 30 October 2010 at 12:13

Cyril Riemann said:

Whoa! Photograph browsing yahoo and google for hours just for this and i last but not least think it is here!

# 6 November 2010 at 18:42

Ison said:

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[…] MegaPack for 2009 as it’s been almost a year since the last MegaPack was released, with 72 freeware programs back in December 2008. The new MegaPack has 94 freeware programs, all tested and installed in my […]